A white hinged tin holding forty-eight watercolour half pans in two long rows of twenty-four, with a single Aquafine brush lying in the channel between them. The lid opens flat into eight large mixing wells. The sleeve states the contents without decoration — Studio Set, 48x pans, 1x brush — under the Daler-Rowney band and the blue Aquafine swirl.

The number that matters is Rs. 337.50 a pan. Forty-eight pans for Rs. 16,200 works out at less than half what a pan costs in our Winsor & Newton Cotman 24 half pan set, which is Rs. 17,500, or Rs. 729.17 a pan. Twice the colours, Rs. 1,300 less. If you are choosing between the two large pan sets on this shelf, that is the whole argument.

It is not a school paint box and should not be bought as one. Our Deli EC10-21 solid cake set is Rs. 1,580 for twenty-one colours, which is Rs. 75.24 a cake, and it will handle a child's homework painting perfectly well. The Aquafine costs roughly four and a half times that per colour. What the money buys is range: forty-eight pigments already in the tin means far less mixing, and far less of the muddiness that comes from mixing your way to a colour you did not have.

The spread runs the full circle rather than repeating itself. The top row moves from yellows and ochres through pinks, crimsons and reds into violets and blues; the bottom row carries the greens, warm and cool, then the browns, the earths and the darks. There are enough neutrals in the tin to grey a colour down without reaching for black every time.

The brush that comes in the tin is a small round marked Aquafine, a starter rather than a working set. We stock the same range in full sizes: the Aquafine round brush in sizes 0 to 30 at Rs. 1,350, the flat shader at Rs. 1,395 and the fan blender at Rs. 1,800. We also carry Aquafine gouache if opaque is what you are after — the starter set of six is Rs. 5,350 and the introduction set of twelve is Rs. 10,600.

We list this set from 12 years up. It is an artist's material, not a toy. The Safencia price is Rs. 16,200 with Cash on Delivery across Pakistan, and stock, your city and delivery charges are confirmed on WhatsApp before dispatch.

Why this product is worth considering